The Synthesis of Yoga

The Mystery of Love 603
All the relations by which this union comes about, become
on this path intensely and blissfully personal. That which in the
end contains, takes up or unifies them all, is the relation of lover
and beloved, because that is the most intense and blissful of
all and carries up all the rest into its heights and yet exceeds
them. He is the teacher and guide and leads us to knowledge;
at every step of the developing inner light and vision, we feel
his touch like that of the artist moulding our clay of mind, his
voice revealing the truth and its word, the thought he gives us to
which we respond, the flashing of his spears of lightning which
chase the darkness of our ignorance. Especially, in proportion as
the partial lights of the mind become transformed into lights of
gnosis, in whatever slighter or greater degree that may happen,
we feel it as a transformation of our mentality into his and more
and more he becomes the thinker and seer in us. We cease to
think and see for ourselves, but think only what he wills to think
for us and see only what he sees for us. And then the teacher is
fulfilled in the lover; he lays hands on all our mental being to
embrace and possess, to enjoy and use it.
He is the Master; but in this way of approach all distance
and separation, all awe and fear and mere obedience disappear,
because we become too close and united with him for these
things to endure and it is the lover of our being who takes it
up and occupies and uses and does with it whatever he wills.
Obedience is the sign of the servant, but that is the lowest stage
of this relation, dāsya. Afterwards we do not obey, but move
to his will as the string replies to the finger of the musician.
To be the instrument is this higher stage of self-surrender and
submission. But this is the living and loving instrument and it
ends in the whole nature of our being becoming the slave of
God, rejoicing in his possession and its own blissful subjection
to the divine grasp and mastery. With a passionate delight it does
all he wills it to do without questioning and bears all he would
have it bear, because what it bears is the burden of the beloved
being.
He is the friend, the adviser, helper, saviour in trouble and
distress, the defender from enemies, the hero who fights our